1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid dispensing pump which is finger-operated to dispense the liquid contents of a hand-held, non-pressurized container. These pumps are commonly used to dispense liquids such as window and all-purpose cleaners, insecticides and other household products; also hair sprays, deodorants, colognes and similar personal products from a consumer type dispensing package in which the pump also serves to close the container during shipment or other periods of non-use.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Finger-operated dispensing pumps for discharging consumer-type liquid products from a hand-held container are well known and are used extensively in "convenience" packaging to facilitate the user's dispensing of the product from the container. Such pumps are commonly designed to be thrown away with the container when this becomes empty. The cost of the pump is therefore an important consideration, so that simplicity and economy in design, materials, manufacture and assembly are critical to a commercially satisfactory pump. In addition to their dispensing function, these pumps must also serve as closures for the associated containers when not in use. Accordingly they must provide assured sealing capability for the container to prevent leakage regardless of inversion of the package during shipping and related handling, or in case of accidental upsetting or dropping by the user. The conflicting requirements of low cost yet assurred operativeness and security against leaking have presented a challenge which has generated many pump designs, of which those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,228,570, 3,248,021, 3,394,836, 3,583,605, 3,797,705, Re. 28,366 are representative.